Yellowstone

 

Every year, we go with Dan’s family to Yellowstone and his family has ALWAYS rented a teensy tiny cabin. It’s fun, but very crowded. Last year was pretty rough with all 29 of us and a few newborns! This year, his parents were great enough to rent a big cabin that fit our huge family much better. It was really nice to have a washer and dryer, multiple bathrooms, and 2 kitchens!

We stayed in Idaho Falls on Friday night at Mark & Carrie’s house. Then we all drove the rest of the way to the cabin in Island Park. Lissie, Alex and Brigham squeezed into our car and we had a good time on the drive up to Island Park.

This is a good picture of the great room in the cabin. There was a lot of room for all of us and with 13 kids age 9 and under, we needed a lot of room! The mosquitoes were absolutely horrible this year with all the water so we didn’t spend much time outside at all and we spent a lot of time killing mosquitoes in the house and reapplying bug spray!

The kids had fun eating on the deck even though the mosquitoes were swarming!

Dan and Ben posing with their nurf guns…the boys had some fun shooting each other and getting nurf darts everywhere.

We were quite the caravan while we drove around Yellowstone. 5 vehicles and tons of people…we took over everywhere we went but it was a blast! This was at lunch in Mammoth and the kids were enjoying their sandwiches on the grass. There are still 5 other grandkids not in this picture! Mia, Katelyn, Emmy, Lissie, Sarah, Wellyn, Addy and Brigham. Love these kids.

     Lissie, Ryan and Emmy checking out the geysers and hot pots.

Wellyn absolutely adores Addy and this picture proves it! He follows her around everywhere and just loves her. It’s really cute. Mia is showing me her blue tongue from eating an airhead!

  Dan and I chillin’ with Everett while we were waiting for Old Faithful to start. He loves his Lightning McQueen jammies so much he wouldn’t let Julie change his shirt! So he wore it all day. This is a funny picture of him too, he’s a sweetheart. 

Grandpa and Everett. Marty loves his family and especially his grandkids so much and they love him! He spoils them and is so sweet with them. The little boys especially love him and are always asking for Papa! Everett is also helping Amanda push Ryan in the stroller.

The fam set up for lunch near Old Faithful and grandpa handed out treats and ice cream sandwiches.      Enjoying the rocking chairs with ice cream sandwiches. I love Everett’s blue eyes and chocolately face!

      I’m such a lucky girl…I seriously love this boy!

  Addy showing off her cute sunglasses. Brigham was the only injury of the week and he sliced his shin open on one of the bedrames. Carrie had to take him to Idaho Falls and he ended up with 16 stitches! But he was back the next morning and ready to rock. What a stud.

 

Dan with the newest member of the family (Matt). Dan was making him laugh really hard and it was so cute!

Dan and I had to leave on Wednesday evening because he had to work on Thursday. But we had a blast with the family and enjoyed the cooler weather and just being outdoors in Yellowstone! We already have plans to go back with just the two of us over Labor Day to celebrate Dan’s graduation. He loves it up there and dreams about having cabin there someday!

Summertime

 

I have a lot of catch up to do…we had a fun 4th of July, we went to Yellowstone with the ENTIRE (29 people) family, and I have been finishing some projects I need to show everyone! But here are some pics of our 4th of July weekend.

Dan and I wanted to do something on the 2nd, but didn’t know what to do so we found out West Haven was having “West Haven Days” so we went on over there to check things out. It ended up being awesomely awesome with loads of crazy redneck/white trash people roaming around, and we had a blast! We love living in the “country” (at least it’s country to us), and some of the people really make it interesting! We at some gyros and watched a FREE rodeo! It was a really good rodeo too and we ended up staying for a good fireworks show at the end and meeting up with Jon and Julie.

On Sunday, we had our usual fast Sunday dinner at Dan’s parents house but we stayed late and did fireworks. We ended up getting into a HUGE water fight and we all got pretty soaked. It was really fun and felt great since it was soooo hot, but none of us had dry clothes to wear. Luckily, Debbie came through with her incredible Mumu collection and we all borrowed one for the evening.

I think we ended up liking them a little too much and all of us kept them on the whole night! It was freaking out our husbands a little because they kept thinking each of us was Debbie. Sweet.

Let’s play “Find Julie!” She is blending into the quilt…amazing camouflage in her Mumu.

I have a lot of cutie cute pictures of Mia. She loves to make this angry face and does it a lot, but she’s really a sweetheart and smiles and laughs a lot.

Mia’s popsicle face and Addy with her sparkler.

Grandma and Grandpa with Mia enjoying the fireworks show. Dan and Jon bought TONS of fireworks and had a little too much fun with the new laws about aerial fireworks. But it was great and we loved it.

These last two pictures are the epitome of summertime for me. My adorable niece and nephew (Everett and Mia), barefoot, eating popsicles. Seriously so precious.

Dresser makeover

 

I have seen a lot of really sweet dresser makeovers in blog-land and when we got our new TV several (like 10) months ago, I went back and forth about what I wanted to use as a TV stand. We thought about a fake fireplace, and a “real” TV stand but they were pricey and it would be a while before that happened. We have been using our old coffee table since we got the TV and I finally decided I wanted to make over a dresser to use like some of these I saw online:

I have scoured Craiglist and KSL for the past few months trying to find something that wasn’t huge or too pricey or in Provo (or somewhere too far away from us). Finally I found this beauty and got it home. Here she is before I got my hands on her:

And here she is now!

Here is our family room before the dresser with our old coffee table (also from KSL several years ago):

And now here is our family room with the newly made over dresser:

I also stenciled the top with a stencil I got at Hobby Lobby and I LOVE it. I used the same pearlescent craft paint I used to stencil our master bedroom wall here.

Here is a quick run-down of what I did:

1. I sanded the entire dresser with my electric sander. I just wanted to get the shine off so this didn’t take too long, but it was messy.
2. I filled in some cracks, the drawer handle holes and a swirly design on one of the drawers with wood putty. Then I re-sanded those areas.
3. Washed it down with a damp rag to remove the dust.
4. Sprayed the entire dresser and drawers with 3-4 light coats of KILZ primer.
5. Sanded the entire dresser and drawers lightly with a sanding block.
6. Wiped down the dresser with a damp rag.
7. Sprayed everything with several light coats of Rustoleum’s Heirloom White spray paint.

8. Stenciled design on top using craft paint and a stencil brush.
9. Sprayed everything with gloss enamel protective coat.
10. Put on new hardware
11. Removed one of the drawers to store our Blu-Ray and Cable box (I also drilled holes in the back for cords and venting).

I love the dresser and it fits really well in the room. With our darker couches, it brightens the room and there is tons of storage! We love it and it really wasn’t very difficult. Here is the cost breakdown (approximate):

-Dresser on KSL: $45
-3 cans KILZ primer: $12
-2 cans spray paint: $8
-1 can gloss paint: $4
-stencil: $10
-craft paint: free (leftover)
-hardware: $36

TOTAL: $115

It would have been much cheaper if I didn’t buy new hardware, but I love the look of it and that is still a great deal compared to buying one brand new. It’s a sturdy dresser and I’m sure I’ll do something similar for a future nursery/bedroom.

Wasatch Back 2011

Dan and I ran in the Wasatch Back last weekend and we had a great time! We did it for the first time last year and Dan also ran the Ragnar race in Las Vegas.

I have been running a lot this year and really enjoying it more than I ever have. I run with some women at work during our lunch breaks (before it finally got hot this week) and that has made it even more enjoyable.

It was mostly Dan’s family but my sister ran with us this year as well which was really fun. Dan and I were in separate vans but Steph and I were in the same van so we partied it up together. She is a great runner and did awesome.

The other people in our van was Julie (Dan’s sister), Joe (Dan’s brother), Tyson (Dan’s cousin), and Tyler (Tyson’s friend). We had a good time together and got really friendly really fast (that tends to happen with you’re in an SUV together for 30 hours).

I was a little worried about the weather because it has been so cold and there is still so much snow, but those 2 days were ideal for running. It got pretty frigid at night and we almost froze to death, but other than that, it was awesome! The temperatures were low and there was a nice breeze so it wasn’t too hot at all. Dan ran the “Ragnar Hill” up Guardsman’s Pass and there was several feet of snow that they had plowed just for the race!

What a crazy goofball. Joe is the tallest, skinniest person I know but that makes for a fast runner . He was a speedy gonzalez and even got this sweet sombrero and a free meal to Café Rio during one of his legs! The short shorts were hot too. Julie kept telling him to change them!

My sister is a hot mess and she just kept adding on clothes as the day went on…put sweats on over her skirt, then a jacket, the socks (but kept the flip flops), and finally the safety vest that you have to wear after 7:30pm. And her sunglasses broke so she decided to wear them like this. I was proud to have her and Joe as teammates. Hot mess.

This is me at the end of my last run down Heber Canyon which was beautiful. It was in the morning and the weather was awesome and I really enjoyed it. I knew there was a bit of a hill at the very end because I ran it last year, and I’m proud to say I ran the whole way up the hill (didn’t do it last year)!

Here is Steph finishing her last leg and handing off to Dan’s cousin, Tyson.

Showing off our medals at the finish line. We were exhausted and glad to be done!

The hardest part of the Wasatch Back is the lack of sleep. It’s hard to run, but it’s much harder running in the middle of the night, a few hours after your last run and doing it all without any sleep at all. I don’t do well without sleep and I can sleep anywhere at any time so I took advantage of my wonderful talent and I definitely got the most sleep out of our whole team! Being in van 1, we were able to have about 4 hours to sleep outside from 3-7am and I was out that whole time. Everyone else was too cold or uncomfortable, but I was fine! Then at the finish line while waiting for van 2 to finish, my sister and I zonked out on the grass for 3 more hours! It was heaven and definitely helped a lot.

The race was definitely a success and I am proud of myself and Danny for training and doing a good job. We had fun and will probably do it again next year. I have a few other races this summer that I am looking forward to and as long as I enjoy it, I will keep running!

Family stuff

First of all, we ran the Wasatch Back this past weekend and we both survived! We had a really good time and Dan and I both did really well. I really loved it and I tried to make a particular effort to enjoy the beautiful views that we saw and to look around while I was running and be grateful that I have a strong body and the opportunity to run and enjoy being outside. Now sometimes I wanted to barf and “enjoy” was the last word on my mind, but I tried! I will post pics of that soon.

You may have noticed it rained a bit in May…we got tons of rain and our lovely fire pit filled right up with water since the ground was too wet to soak it up! Thank goodness we have a sump pump that was running all day and night keeping water out of our basement. We had a little seepage in our food storage room, but it was pretty easy to clean up. You can also see our neighbor’s backyard in the top of the picture which turned into a huge lake!

My little sissy graduated from SUU in December and walked in May and we went to see her graduate! So exciting!

We stayed in St. George for the night and had to take some pics on the balcony of the pretty sunset.

Pretty girl. I don’t think I will ever think of her as anything other than my baby sister, no matter how old we get! It’s weird how protective I am of her and how much older I feel than her even though she’s all grown up and we are such good friends now. It’s hard to remember the good old days when we wanted to kill each other on a daily basis…

The boys having fun with the camera. Danny loves having another guy around and we love that they get along and entertain each other so we can just chat nonstop.

For Memorial Day, we drove to Idaho Falls and stayed at Danny’s brother’s house. We had a lot of fun and I especially loved our dance party one night. I got some sweet pics too.

There was TONS of junk food (I can’t believe how skinny that family is with all the treats they consume) and the kids were in heaven.

Ryan loving his glow stick grandma gave out to all the grandkids. I love my sweet nieces and nephews!